Fire and Ice
by HeatStroke430
Summary: Kate Beckett only has so many pieces.


_I got tired of watching Castle and Beckett come out of life or death situations with no forward movement. So, I made my own._ _Title is from the Robert Frost poem below._

Some say the world will end in fire,  
>Some say in ice.<br>From what I've tasted of desire  
>I hold with those who favor fire.<br>But if I had to perish twice,  
>I think I know enough of hate<br>To say that for destruction ice  
>Is also great<br>And would suffice.  
>—Robert Frost<p>

* * *

><p>She thinks about it a lot. Some days more than others. The week after their car went careening into the Hudson River, she'd had nightmares about it. What it would be like to lose him. When the next moment of clarity will come, that moment when she's dying or he's dying or they're both dying and she thinks <em>how have I never told you that I love you?<em>

She brought it up in a therapy session once. They were talking about fear (why do they always seem to talk about fear?) and her therapist was beating her dead horse into a bloody pulp, telling her that she was just as afraid of being with Castle as losing Castle. She'd blurted it out, half to shut him up and half because it's always on the tip of her tongue anyway.

_If he dies then another piece of me dies too. I only have so many pieces._

_Only so many. _

Anyway, she thinks about it a lot. Hyper vigilance. When will she have to save his life again? (He may think he's saved her life more than she's saved his, but he doesn't understand. He doesn't carry a gun, he doesn't know the weight or the responsibility, he doesn't know that if she fails to save him, she's succeeded in murdering him.) When will they knock on death's door? Again?

She honestly didn't expect this to be it.

The snow is falling so thick she can barely see. It's sticking in her hair, on her eyelashes, coating her wool coat. Maybe if she was in her apartment, sipping tea and watching it fall, it would beautiful. Instead, all she can think about is how if she loses him now, she'll move to Africa so she never has to see the godforsaken whiteness again.

"Castle," she calls into the phone. Her voice doesn't sound like hers. There's too much panic threading into it. Her breath puffs visibly in front of her, a brief white cloud. "Castle, listen to me. You can't go to sleep."

"Beck," he murmurs, failing to pronounce the entirety of her last name. "S'ok I…"

"Castle!" she growls at him. "Castle, damn it, wake up. I'm on the way."

"Nu hmmm," he hums.

"Castle. Rick. Rick, tell me a story."

She sprints around a corner, her boots crunching in the snow. She hits a patch of ice, slips, catches herself with a hand on the brick building to her right. Her leather gloves scratch against the surface.

"C'mon, Rick. I want to hear a story."

"Cause a' my sexy voice," he says, then giggles.

"Uh huh," she says, panting a little. She glances at the street sign, does a quick mental calculation. Two blocks. "Use the sexy voice."

"See Nikki loved it," he says. The rest of his sentence is unintelligible.

"Loved what?" she prods. She wants to run faster, but she's afraid she'll slip and hit her head and be in the same predicament. She called an ambulance. They'd find him. But for some reason (why do these moments seem to be painfully clear and fuzzy at the same goddamn time?) she's convinced that if she gets there first, he'll be okay.

"Rook," he answers sleepily. "Cause he understands her."

"Like you understand me," she says. She'd never say it under normal circumstances. Would she? One block to go.

"Yeah," he says, drawing out the end of the word on a sigh. "S'hard sometimes cause you push."

Her face is cold, her skin numb because of the snow and the wind pounding her face while she runs, but the tears are hot in her eyes.

"I'm sorry," she says.

"Shhh," he says. "Sh. Sh."

"Rick," she shouts as she rounds the last bend. "Don't go to sleep. I'm almost there."

"I was comin' to you," he says.

He was. He was on the way to her apartment, though why he would do that in a snowstorm is beyond her. Why couldn't he stay home, safe and warm? Why would he be walking in a snow storm?

She knows why. He's been sad, lately. Since Sophia. So when he texted her to say he'd be at her door in five minutes, she was glad. He shouldn't be alone. But then five minutes stretched to ten and then twenty, and then she called, because she was worried (when did she become a worrier?) and he hadn't answered so she called again, and again, and then he answered and sounded drunk, muttering about getting out of the cab early to enjoy the snow, slipping and hitting his head, and here she is, sprinting through the worst blizzard Manhattan has seen in decades because god damn it, they've survived snipers and freezers and bombs and drowning and she will _not_ lose him to this.

She spots a dark mass up ahead, and ice be damned she pushes herself to run faster. She skids to a stop next to him, crashes down onto her knees. She's going to bruise but she doesn't care.

"Rick," she pants, running her hands over his face. His eyes are fluttering open and closed. Snow has started to accumulate on his jacket. "Hey, hey. Rick. Rick, look at me."

He opens his eyes and looks at her. "Kate," he murmurs. "Hi."

"Hi," she says, laughing slightly around what sounds suspiciously like a sob. "An ambulance is on the way. Hang on, okay? Stay with me."

"Ambulance?" he says. "Why?'

"You hit your head," she answers. She checks his head while she says it, wanting to make sure he's not bleeding. The snow around his head is pristinely white. No red. Thank God.

"Headache," he mutters.

She holds his face in her hands again. "I know. It'll be better soon."

"How'd you find me?" His eyes flutter closed.

"Open your eyes," she orders. He obeys. "I called you," she answers. "You told me you fell. I had the boys trace your call. I came as soon as I could."

He smiles. "My hero."

She has another laugh/sob moment. He covers her hand with his. "You look pretty in the snow."

His eyes flutter closed again. She shakes him. "Rick. Come on. Please."

His eyelids twitch, but his eyes don't open. Sirens wail in the distance. She presses her forehead to his and begs him not to leave her.

X-X-X-X-X

She thinks it would be a good idea if hospitals invested in colored sheets. Probably not red, because of the obvious implications. A deep, midnight blue might be nice. Or purple. Hell, she'll even take orange right about now. She'll take anything but the white on Castle's hospital bed. It makes his skin look waxy and gray and reminds her of all the white surrounding them when she'd found him, barely conscious, in the fucking snow.

He's going to be fine. Mild hypothermia and a concussion. Alexis and Martha are on their way. Martha was visiting a friend in California, and Alexis had tagged along. Kate called them before the hospital did, and even though she's been trained to deliver bad news, even though this is good news, she felt her chest tighten when Alexis's voice cracked worriedly.

So, she's the only family Castle's got for now. Or something. Whatever it is, she's been sitting in a chair next to his bed for what seems like days, but it's only been an hour. When his pain meds wear off enough that he wakes up she's going to take him back to his place, and then she's going to wake him up every few hours to make sure he isn't dead. The doctor kindly told her she could set an alarm, but she knows that she won't sleep a wink tonight. She'll be running through all the ways she could lose him so that it doesn't hurt so much when she does.

_In other news, Richard Castle died late last night thanks to his muse_.

"Kate?" Castle murmurs, shifting on his bed.

Kate shoots up out of her chair. She bends over the bed, peering at him, running the backs of her fingers over his cheek. It still feels cold. "Hey you."

He blinks up at her, and then breaks out into a goofy grin. "Am I dreaming?"

She smiles. "No. You hit your head. Why?"

"You usually only touch me like this in my dreams."

Reality comes screeching back, makes Kate lurch as though she's on a roller coaster that's suddenly slammed on its brakes. She drops her hand. "Oh. Sorry."

He knits his eyebrows, looking adorably confused. "What? No. Do it again."

She steps away from the bed. "You're a little disoriented, Castle."

He crinkles his nose. "Doesn't that make you want to touch me again?"

She can't help a small smile. "It makes me want to get you home to bed."

"Why, Detective Beckett, if I'd known you—"

"Shut up," she cuts him off, but it's far too gentle to make it seem like she means it, and she's almost positive that her eyes are giving her away anyway, because she can't stop staring at him. "Let me find your doctor," she murmurs.

She feels his eyes on her as she leaves the room. The blaze of heat racing down her spine almost dispels the cold reality of losing him.

Almost.

X-X-X-X-X

It's three o'clock in the morning. She's wearing a pair of shorts and a threadbare t-shirt, both Castle's. They smell like him. So does the couch she's curled up on, and the pillow her face is resting on, and she wonders briefly if her hair will smell like him tomorrow morning.

She's staring at the face of her father's watch, waiting for the seconds to pass. She's not supposed to wake him again for another half an hour, but it's killing her. Every time she enters his bedroom the impulse to set up camp next to his bed so she can see his chest rising and falling takes over. She touched him last time, just once, just her hand over his forehead as though she was checking for a fever. His skin was warm.

Another minute passes. The hands on the watch are moving slower. She takes a deep breath. Exhales. The snow is still falling outside, and for once the city noises aren't permeating the stillness. Fifteen seconds tick by. She twitches her ankle absently. Another five seconds.

Fuck it.

She rises from the couch slowly, leaving the afghan she was covered with in a pile on one of the cushions. Her bare feet are silent on the rug as she creeps across the room and toward his study. She left the door ajar so it wouldn't creak. She steals her way toward his bedroom, and then stops at the door. She leans against the doorframe, squints her eyes. Waits. Finally, she sees the mass underneath his blankets rising and falling almost imperceptibly.

She stands there for she doesn't know how long, fighting with herself about whether to get closer, maybe touch him again, or to turn around like a sane person and go back out to the couch. Her logic wins in the end (it usually does, damn it), but as she turns away she's startled to hear his voice.

"Wait."

She freezes. Her heart roars in her ears, pounding through her veins, and for a second she forgets how to breathe. When she remembers, she feels like an idiot, trying to control it so he won't hear her panting like a creep in his doorway.

Somehow, over her uproarious panting and heart racing, she hears a rustle behind her. And then a creak, as though the floorboards are being stepped on. Goose bumps race over her arms, down her legs, reminding her of how thin the clothes she's wearing are. She swallows the lump in her throat.

"You okay?"

His voice is low, throaty, decidedly sexy. She slams her eyes closed, takes a deep breath.

"Of course," she says. She thinks her voice sounds relatively steady, but then she realizes that she should've turned around. Firstly, because no one talks to someone with their back facing them, and secondly, because when he steps closer and she feels his breath rush over the back of her neck she thinks her knees might buckle from how fast her libido shoots from 0 to 60.

"You're early."

_Turn around_, she orders herself. _Turn around, you idiot._

"Keeping tabs on me?" she says instead. She grits her teeth. Why is she using her sex voice? This is not the time for sex, this is Castle with hypothermia and a concussion, this is her terrified that she almost lost him again, this her being a good friend by checking on him and nothing more, nothing—

"I always keep tabs on you."

Oh, God, it is so much more.

"Castle…" she starts, but stops abruptly when he places a hand on her hip. Just one hand, just on the side of her hip, nothing stunningly sexual, but it's enough and she still hasn't turned around and _what the hell is she doing_.

Then he moves again, brings his body up closer to her back so that she can feel his body heat, and another wave of goose bumps crashes over her. His mouth is by her left ear, she knows because she can feel him breathing. She swallows again, forces herself to open her eyes.

"Thanks," he whispers. "You know, for saving my life."

"Just trying to even the score."

He chuckles. A moment passes. She doesn't know why she's still standing like this, doesn't know what he's thinking with his hand possessively on her hip and his mouth so close to her ear, but she does know that she couldn't move even if she wanted to. Which she definitely does not.

"I'm sorry I scared you," he murmurs.

It all comes rushing back then, the panic she felt when he called, her sprint through the snow, the sirens, his cold cheek, the hospital…

"How do you know I was scared?" she says, a last ditch effort to not seem so pathetically concerned when he's clearly just fine.

She can see him shrugging in her mind's eye. "The way you've been looking at me since I woke up. The fact that you've come in here more than you need to."

Her heart stutters to a stop when he presses his lips against the column of her neck. "Breaking the touch barrier."

"That's you, not me," she chokes out.

"You broke it first."

"Right, because that makes you sound _so_ mature."

"Kate."

She closes her eyes against the emotion in his voice. "You scared me."

"I know."

She makes the decision the second it crosses her mind. She bites her lip and covers his hand on her hip, pulls it forward as she steps back and brings her back flush against his chest. Her breathing hitches at the contact but she keeps going, presses his palm to her stomach and her cheek against his mouth. He pulls her earlobe into his mouth, his tongue hot on her skin, and suddenly it all makes sense. The snow and the cold and her compulsive need to check on him. Maybe this isn't the best night, maybe there have been far better nights or will be far better nights, but how does she even know they'll get any of those nights? How does she even know she'll get tomorrow, or ten minutes from now? Why it's the snow and not a bullet to her heart she'll never know, but guiding his hand under the hem of her shirt and onto the bare skin of her stomach seems like answer enough for now.

He's covering her neck with open-mouthed kisses now, but she can barely concentrate on his tongue because his hand is slipping upwards, over her ribs, and then he traces a finger along the underside of one of her breasts.

She goes still, her body tensing at the contact. She could turn back. They could ignore this, probably, but if he goes up higher that'll be a lot harder to ignore when he brings her coffee Monday morning. Maybe he's thinking the same thing because he lingers, moving his index finger back and forth slowly. They hover in the silence for a second, right on the edge, until she can't take it. She bends forward, jutting her ass into him, and he reacts quicker than lightning. He reaches up and grabs ahold of her breast, squeezing. She arches her back and his other hand finds her other breast, squeezes too, and when his thumbs rush over her nipples she bites her lip to stifle a moan.

She puts her hand against the doorframe, leans against it heavily but tips her head back, reveling in how goddamn good it feels to have his hands on her. Heat pools in her abdomen, wetness pools down lower. His mouth is by her ear again.

"Am I dreaming?"

She finally turns to face him, winds her arms around his neck. She brings her mouth right up against his but stops, her lips barely brushing his. "No," she answers.

And then she kisses him, her tongue in his mouth immediately. He kisses her back with an intensity that almost scares her, but he scared her more earlier, when he was unconscious in the snow, so it isn't hard to push the fear away.

She pushes into him, walks him backward. They tumble onto the bed, pawing at each other's clothes. She starts above him, straddling him, and loses the shirt she'd borrowed. He palms her breasts again, rougher this time, and she purrs a little in the back of her throat. She pulls him up by a fistful of his shirt, then rips it off of him. He grins at her, but he doesn't say what she knows is on the tip of his tongue. Maybe he's afraid of stopping what they're obviously headed toward, but it's probably more accurate that her grinding quick against him once, twice, is what shuts him up.

She likes the noises he makes with her movements, so what started out as a silencing tactic turns into an attempt to make him groan louder. She underestimates what it'll do to her, though, and pretty soon she feels like her shorts are soaked through. She lifts her hands to run them through her hair, still moving on top of him, but suddenly feels his hand dipping beneath the waistband of her shorts. She looks down just as he thumbs her clit, and she arches hard and lets out an embarrassingly aroused, breathy moan.

She's distracted enough by the jolt of pleasure that he flips her easily, has her on her back in a heartbeat. She lifts her legs to wrap around him. He has other ideas, though, and starts tugging at her shorts. She lifts her ass, lets him pull them off, and it isn't until he's thrown them aside in the darkness that she realizes she is completely, utterly naked in Richard Castle's bed.

As if he can read her mind, he meets her eyes from above her. She bites her lip. He shakes his head.

"Don't."

"Don't what?" she says, but she can feel herself closing off. He clenches his jaw, but before she can figure out if he's angry or determined, he slides a finger inside of her. She arches off of the bed, her hands fisting in the sheet. He buries his head in the curve of her neck. He licks her skin, pulls his finger out and then slides it back in.

"Don't fade on me."

"Fade from…what?" she pants. She can't help but think this is a ridiculous time to be having this conversation, but she's also grateful that he's doing it now, because when he's moving inside of her like that, she forgets those god forsaken walls she supposedly has, and all she can see is him and all she can feel is this weighted joy somewhere deep that is so much more than the orgasm he's already starting to build.

"I scared you for a reason," he says into her chest. He moves two fingers in, brushes his thumb over her clit.

"Alexis," she manages.

"You," he argues. He rubs her clit harder, a steady circling that he somehow knows will drive her wild, and she starts to see stars.

"Me?" she asks. She's panting. She's also moaning, a deep, guttural noise that…nope, no, now he's got her closer and she's getting higher pitched, just as her legs start shaking. She doesn't usually build orgasms this fast. Jesus, she's going to end up addicted to him, isn't she?

"You," he says. He leans over her, starts sucking on one of her nipples as he keeps working her clit.

And then it hits. Her muscles start quivering, heat rolls through her body. "Castle," she breathes.

The orgasm lifts her body into an arch, the world blurs, and for a second there's nothing else in existence except the release consuming her.

When she comes to, he's kissing along her jawline tenderly. On impulse she reaches for him, threads her fingers through his hair. He hovers above her mouth. Maybe coming for him has brought her walls down. She pulls him toward her, kisses him once, twice.

"Me," she says against his lips.

He exhales slowly. "Kate, do you know how m—"

"Shut up," she cuts him off. He stops, pulls away a little. She gives him a small smile before she wraps a leg around him and flips him onto his back. "Shut up," she whispers again. This time he smiles, reaches for one of her breasts, but she leans away, clicks her tongue at him. This time it's her turn to tug on his shorts.

Once she's thrown them off to the side of the bed, she doesn't waste any time. There's a split second right before she sinks onto him that she wonders if her heart is racing because she's turned on or because of something else. She pushes it aside though, not wanting to be consumed with fear, and the pleasure that jolts her to the core once he's finally inside of her tells her that she's right, she will be addicted to him. She might be already.

Just as her second orgasm starts to tighten to the point of release, he sits up and wraps his arms around her. It deepens his angle and that only hurries her orgasm along, but it does something else too. It brings his mouth close enough to kiss her bare shoulder, and then along the curve of her neck. He kisses her lips and then her mouth falls open as the orgasm hits. The words come out of their own accord, riding high on the tidal wave of her release.

"I love you, too."


End file.
